Covid Shots Now Mandatory for Some in More than Half of Russia’s Federal Subjects

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 3 – Karachayevo-Cherkessia has become the 43^rd federal subject to make vaccinations against the coronavirus mandatory for at least some categories of its residents and visitors. That means that more than half of the subjects now have such requirements (doshdu.com/v-karachaevo-cherkesii-vvedena-objazatelnaja-vakcinacija-ot-covid-19/).

            Today, Russian officials reported registering 22,010 new cases of infection, a decline led by a falloff in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but 788 new deaths, at record levels, from the coronavirus over the last 24 hours as the pandemic continued to ebb and flow in various parts of the country (t.me/COVID2019_official/3402 and regnum.ru/news/society/3330437.html).

            On the vaccine front, Superjob reported that those who haven’t gotten the vaccine or don’t intend to did less well in school than those who either have the shots or plan to get them, a pattern some will see as a surrogate for the intelligence of the one and the ignorance of the other  (rbc.ru/society/03/08/2021/610848de9a79471c8a49e38c).

            Sixty percent of railway workers have now received at least the first vaccination shot, officials say (regnum.ru/news/3335793.html); 98 percent of those now hospitalized in Russia for coronavirus infections were without any vaccination (regnum.ru/news/3335926.html), and researchers say 80 percent of all infections are spread by super-spreaders who form 20 percent of the infected pool (regnum.ru/news/3336245.html).

            Some legal experts are pressing for new laws that would impose a ten year jail sentence on anyone selling false vaccination certificates and a five year one on any who purpose such documentation (sovsekretno.ru/articles/kovidnye-fishki/).

            Meanwhile, the Association of Tour Operators of Russia has appealed to the World Tourist Organization and the tourist agencies of European countries to restore international tourism now rather than wait until the pandemic ends (znak.com/2021-08-04/ator_predlagaet_vosstanovit_mezhdunarodnyy_turizm_do_okonchaniya_pandemii_koronavirusa).